November 2009

11/27/2009

Generally go to Pizza Express when visiting the Tate? Forced to wonder whether the food at the Founder's Arms is edible? Worry no more - there's much better fare just a few steps away. But you have to know where to look…

11/25/2009

Podcasts are really worth it – if you’re not into them then may I respectfully suggest getting into them? If you’re not familiar with the concept, basically, it’s radio, but you choose the content. Here are a few gastro podcasts I can heartily recommend:

I'm home alone - drinking Martini rosso with diet ginger ale, eating crab paste from the jar with the wrong end of a teaspoon, and watching an American frozen food review blog on my laptop. Just thought you'd like to know …

NO I DO NOT NEED A FUCKING RECEIPT FOR MY COFFEE. I AM NOT GOING TO TAKE IT BACK AND EXCHANGE IT. My wallet is a graveyard of single-item receipts for consumables. If you must print a receipt, please for the love of God, keep it to yourself

So, what is good with venison? In simple terms, just think Autumn and Winter foods. To be more specific, there are five ways you can go, which accentuates what I see as the five main flavours in venison: sweet, earthy, grassy, gamey, and rich.

11/24/2009

La Porchetta, or Porchis (as it's known to people like me, who find more than one syllable exhausting) is a chain of pizza restaurants with about 5 branches, in locations including Upper St, Chalk Farm and Finsbury Park. The USP is a proper pizza oven and the general concept is Pizza Express but better.

We dined last night at the Chalk Farm branch, which is a very large, square room on the main street. The room shape and minimal decor has the knock on effect of making the place noisy, and empty if there aren't enough covers. Luridly coloured pictures of pigs grace the walls ('porchetta' is a kind of Italian pork roast). In this branch, the pizza station is in the room itself, so if you fancy or if you're bored with your companion's conversation, you can watch all the theatrical dough-tossing.

The plus points of Porchis, a mon avis, are substantial and as follows: 1) it's not a big chain so still counts as a small/local company2) the pizzas are very good3) it's reasonably priced, at under £8 for most pizzas4) the wine is available in carafes, and at £6-something for a 1/2 litre, that makes it wonderfully drinkableThe minus points are:1) the venue is quite soulless2) the service is usually pretty sullen, and can be downright rubbishPerhaps one ought therefore mention plus point 5): you can order the pizzas to go. Overall, this is a good standby local which serves far better pizzas than most.

Top menu choice: for pizza fans, I would recommend the Boscaiola: mushrooms and porcini (rehydrated dried porcini, with a lovely woodland flavour), crumbled Italian sausage and fresh chilli. For carnivores, the Stinco di Porco pork shin (Eisbein) with rice and salad is massive. So much so that it's hard to cut without pushing the rest of your meal off the plate.

Top tip: order garlic pizza bread as a starter. You may then fail to eat all of your pizza, which you can then take home and have for breakfast (see prev post: "The evils of cereal")

If you like this, you may also like: Marine Ices (Chalk Farm), Pizza Express

11/20/2009

I'm going to go against all received wisdom here and present my final argument first: anything is acceptable to eat for breakfast, EXCEPT that which is boring and taste-redundant. Let me present my arguments:

You know what bulking agents are? I don't either, but they crop up on ingredients lists as one of those 'I'd rather not know and now I'm sorry I looked' items. I picture them as something like cement, or chalk - just some non-reactive substance whose only role is to make whatever-it-is bigger than it was.

Last night I was introduced to a new bulking agent: pitta bread. Piles and piles of toasted pitta bread. How delightful, I hear you think, if there were piles and piles of hummus and taramasalata and tzatziki with it. But were there? I think you know the answer.

Ok so to be fair (if I absolutely have to be, though generally I don't approve of the practice), we weren't there for the food. The Bedroom Bar is a live music venue down a shady back street in Shoreditch, an area which specialises in said live venues and shady back streets, as well as doing a nice sideline in anorexic-looking girls with goth makeup and a Victorian wardrobe lounging artistically outside faux-authentic East End pubs which also serve rillettes. You get me? The Peruvian band we saw (Los Chinches) were great. The mezze was ok. But wherefore all the pitta? Bulk, my friends. Bulk.

Details: the carnivorous platter came with massive chicken legs/wings, a criminally small number of lamb koftes and a big pile of fatty sausages slices. All well and good and generically Mediterranean enough not to upset the children, though I could swear buffalo wings aren't a classic Greek dish.

The vegetarian platter - tortillas, stuffed with some vegetables, so few that I was uncertain until I actually bit into it that it was stuffed, not just awkwardly folded; just the two halloumi kebabs - fortunately I was near that end of the table so could scarf more than my fair share; olives; one small bowl of what was definitely hummus but seemed to have been mixed with cottage cheese (and let's be clear here: it was PINEAPPLE cottage cheese. Good suffering Christ); and mounds and mounds and mounds of pitta. What looked sumptuous ended up, as half a good meal accompanied by a big pile of dough.

All those dry, curly pitta triangles, unredeemed by sauce of any kind? Yes of course I ate them.